Today we visited the famous Cayman Sea Turtle Center where turtles are bred to release into the wild, provide meat for local people, and give tourist the ability to encounter turtles close up. In my opinion after seeing the turtle center and the conditions the animals were kept in, I would have to say I think the treatment of the turtles is fairly poor and inhumane. Off the bat I want to say I am no extreme animal rights supporter, but I think that animals should be treated with some level of respect and care. At the turtle center however sea turtles were kept in crowded dirty pools made of concrete with little room to move around. The part that made me the most angry was the turtle touching area where small turtles were kept in 15ft concrete pools so that people could pick up turtles and “interact” with them. The turtles from what I observed seemed to swim away from grasping hands, and so to make it easier for people to grab the fleeing turtles people could wade in and scoop them up. The reason I think this is wrong is because these animals are treated inhumanely by being kept in unfit living conditions and are not respected since the turtles are obviously picked up against their will which is using our power as human beings to be cruel to other powerless creatures. Another part about the turtle center that made me disappointed was because the turtles were sick and at risk of dying. In the tanks the turtles would be pale white with cloudy eyes which is a sign of disease showing how dirty and unsanitary the living conditions for these animals were which shows a basic lack of respect for another living creature. If I were running the turtle center, I would make some serious changes that still allowed people to experience the turtles and supply the locals with meat. First rather than having the awful touch tanks, the turtles should be kept in a decent habitat where they would not get sick and the workers would bring one out every once in a while for people to gently touch with 2 fingers. This would severely limit the stress of the animal as after the touching it would have a place to swim around and be able to relax away from humans. Second I would keep the farming of turtles for meat, but I would reduce the number of turtles kept in a single tank in order to make meat that is not from sick turtles. The main reason I support growing the turtles for meat is because the 10% or so of locals that eat it would most likely catch wild turtles which are already very endangered for food if the farm was shut down because changing establishing cultures is a task that rarely works. If these changes were made I would support the turtle center, but because the basic respect and care for God’s animals is obviously not a concern I must condemn the Turtle Center and do not support it what so ever.
-Henry
